Mar 10, 2010

I got up early and studied a little bit, but I still wasn't feeling good about the test when I went to take it. I was pretty resigned to a poor grade. After the exam, I didn't feel much better about my grade but I wish I would have known the format before I took it because I think I would have done much better had I known what to study. I went to the Live Events meeting, where we went over volunteering and started listening to the rest of the bands for the battle.

I left the meeting early, or at least before all of the bands were through, to go to Photojournalism and show my images for the sports assignment. I showed the tennis and disc golf images I shot. Everyone else showed theirs as well. It was a long class.

We went down to Sculpture to finally have our critique of project one. I placed all of my snails together and got mostly positive feedback about them. Most people considered the metal one quirky and fun. Everyone else had really good projects as well. There were some that were really awesome.

After crit, we had our artist presentation of the week, where Christina brought in a dog to the box to represent the political art of Joseph Beuys. It was nicely done.

A little later on, I went to Nicole's gallery opening at High Street. She had her photo-grams on display. She has found some really awesome things since she started this in Photo I. There was a serious spread of food and her pieces were really good. Basically, the process involves scanning a magazine page so you can see the images from both sides of the page. The result is often really interesting and she has done a great job with it. The things she gets are pretty awesome.

I had to walk quickly to the Student Center for my SUP interview. I interviewed for two positions. They asked some interesting questions but I felt like I handled them really well and I left the room feeling good about my chances. Joanna had her interview just after mine. I also got a shot of the winning Gnome board. That's my gnome, eating popcorn. Thanks, you won me a hundred bucks in gift cards to Olive Garden!

After hanging out in the office for a while, we went to work on Joanna's turtle in the welding area for a little while but the welder messed up again so we had to leave it.

We left and watched Tosh.0 and The Daily show before sleep.

Mar 7, 2010

I got a few things done at home in the morning and had a smoothie with my sister before going to Rowan to board the Mystery Bus. The idea is you get a cheap ticket and get on the bus without knowing where it's going. I figured it was in or around Philly but I didn't know where exactly.

The bus dropped us off in front of Two Liberty Place and we went into the lobby where two people were waiting for us. They let us in on the surprise that we were going on a Flavors of Philly tour.

We got our guest badges and a little bit of Philly history and then we took to the streets to walk to our first Philly food destination.

Stop one was Tony Luc's Steaks. We weren't sure what to expect since we're vegetarian but it worked out.

We got a vegetable sandwich basically, while everyone else chowed down on their steaks and we learned the history of the steak sandwich in Philly.

The veggie sandwich wasn't bad. It was a little plain but it had a spicy oil on it which gave it a good flavor. I wouldn't seek it out to get another one but I enjoyed it.

The next stop was down the street at the Philly Pretzel Factory. I know it's a chain now so I dismissed it at first but after I learned more about it I realize that this one is the real deal. They make the pretzels on premises and open at 4am.

I got hot mustard on mine of course as I learned that the original pretzel shape was based on the way that children would pray in a monastery over two thousand years ago. Also, the three holes in the pretzel represent the holy trinity. I found that really interesting.

We walked through Center City and past City Hall down to Reading Terminal Market for our last stop.

We went inside for hoagies. We learned the history of that as well while we at our cheese hoagie. It was really good, fresh cheese. We all did a quiz about the things we learned that day and got ready for the sweet part of the tour.

We stopped to get a few bags of tasty chocolate covered pretzels and then went to the 4th Street Cookie Company for our final treat: a delicious chocolate chip cookie. It was so good, soft and chewy. The bus picked us up shortly after this and we got back on, ready to go home and not eat for a while.

When we got back I had to go to the sculpture studio to finish my metal snail.

I welded the snail together and it looked pretty good, if I do say so myself. The welding gun stopped working just before I was going to weld one more piece on but it's basically finished.

We went to get food, where we ran into Andrew and Laura again, and then we retired to work on some homework. We didn't finish a lot of work but I got everything done that I needed to, technically.

Feb 24, 2010

Art History II was the same as usual: filled with information that I'm not sure will be on the test. I spent the time after that burning discs for class and hurrying to get some things done before going to the Live Events meeting. We went over a few upcoming events and then I got some food to take back to Photojournalism.

The class wasn't so bad; we watched a couple of videos about photojournalists in action and then looked at our event assignments and more photos from Jerry's portfolio.

We critiqued the box for this week in Sculpture. It was an interesting idea, fairly well executed. I like the design of it.

I got started on the metal part of my snail sculpture. I thought it was going to be really difficult but it ended up being pretty simple.

Within the one class the snail was coming together nicely by the end of class. I really like the way it's looking and I have a few more classes to finish it so I hope it ends up looking awesome.

I ran home after class to band practice. We got through one more song and worked on a few of the old ones again. It's coming along slowly and hopefully we'll be picking up the pace in the next few weeks.

It was an early night since I had to work in the morning. I was tired anyway.

Feb 22, 2010

I was up early and went to my Art History class late only to find out that it had been canceled and I forgot about it. So that worked out. I went and got vegan hot dogs and fries to bring back to Photojournalism class for our lunch. They were good. We showed our event photos in class but the discs we used to burn didn't have any information on them. I guess it's the program. At the end of class, we played Scrabble while looking at more images.

In Sculpture, I had to present on Christian Boltanski, an installation artist. To represent his type of work, I used clothing on the floor and blurred photographs to symbolize people who have died or gone missing and memorialize them in some way. The presentation went pretty well, I think. I like this artist.

The rest of the time in class was spent carving the final bits of plaster off of my snail to make him the same size at the wax one. It took a lot of time but it's finally the right size and looks very similar to my first one. Now I have to make a giant metal one..

I met Chuck, Jeff and Dan at my house for Argyle Gargoyle practice/drummer tryout. We played a few of our tunes and just jammed a bit on other stuff. It worked out really well overall. Dan picked up on the songs quickly and added his own style to some of them. We should actually be ready to play a show in a month.

Pulling out of the driveway, Dan slid in the snow and backed over the logs along the edge. He got stuck and brought his Jeep back to pull himself off. When that didn't work, my neighbor, who works for AAA, came over and tied a chain to it from his truck and yanked him back out. It was quite an ordeal.

I went to talk to my sister for a little while and had some food before bed. I tried working on some writing but didn't have any luck.

Feb 17, 2010

I went to Art History II in the morning, trying to catch up with what I missed on Monday. After my break, I went to Photojournalism. Another pointless class but we looked at all the snow pictures that we took and ended up leaving early because our "prof" did not feel well.

I hung out on my second break and then went back to Sculpture to work on my snail. We looked at the second box installation that Erica did. It was covered in coffee filters. It really changed the space and the audio that went with it made it even better. I want a room like that.

I carved more off of my sculpture. I carved it down a lot more and tried to get the shape closer. I started worrying a little more about how much I carved because if I take too much off I can ruin it.

I went to hang out in the office with Joanna when she got back from Boston. We stayed in and watched tv for the rest of the night and went to sleep early.

Feb 15, 2010

I stayed up too late last night and just didn't feel like getting up to go to my first class so it's the first official skipped class of the semester. Fifth week, not too bad. I went to Photojournalism for the presentation by our guest speaker, April Saul. She worked with our professor at The Philadelphia Inquirer and she has won many awards for her work. She had a lot of really great photos and some of her work was quite inspiring. It dragged on for a bit at the end but she was interesting.

In sculpture I broke into my plaster snail today. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. For now, at least. It's coming along well but the next step might become difficult.

We ended class early to go upstairs to the Core show closing. We got some food and looked over the work that has been up for the past few weeks. This must mean another opening will be happening soon. This is my favorite piece that has been on display for this gallery.

After spending some time trying to figure out how to write another six hundred words about a font, I went over to the High Street Gallery for the rescheduled opening of "This Is Not Real" and "Purgatory."

There were some really interesting works there. Unfortunately there weren't a lot of people that came out, either because of the rainy snow or because they didn't know it had been rescheduled. Either way, I stayed for a while, chatted with some people and shot some photos.

I came home to try to get some work done on my paper and presentation that's due tomorrow.. no luck so far.

Feb 1, 2010

Early Art History class started my day, followed by a break where I watched Greek and ate some snacks. I went back to Westby shortly after for Photojournalism, which has become a huge joke and we don't really do anything in class but watch our "professor" try to figure out how to use a computer. I left early because I couldn't take it any longer.

In Sculpture I worked more on shaping my wax snail. It's pretty much done except for a few minor tweaks and some smoothing. I poured the plaster for the next instance of snail that I have to create. Sort of looking forward to/dreading working with plaster again...

I went with Katie on a failed attempt to get yucca fries at a Spanish restaurant that doesn't seem to exist anymore and then came right back to the Student Center for the ice cream social event that SUP was having to spread the word about upcoming events and elections. The ice cream was good and we played some "ice breaking" games to get to know each other.

After the official meeting was over we hung out and talked about what certain positions are responsible for so I could get a better idea of what I might want to apply for. After that, the real fun began as we played a round of Catchphrase. I miss that game. Our team was pretty far behind but we came back to win it! Unfortunately we could only play one game because the room wasn't rented out for much longer.

It was Shannon's birthday so I went to Landmark to celebrate with her, Coronas and Jalapeno quesadillas on Mexican Monday. In true Shannon/birthday style, she was holding two beers for this picture.

Erica showed up so we hung out at the bar and talked while Shannon and others in the group entertained the DJ. I stayed for an hour or two and then we decided it be time to get going.

'Twas a fun day of happy, sad, annoyed, angry, etc. It ended on happy though.